With a continued boom in business process outsourcing (BPO), Convergys said Monday it was constructing two new sites in the Philippines and open them within the year. The company said it remained committed to an expansion plan, announced last year, which would provide as many as 7,000 new jobs.

The company will formally open this Wednesday three new sites: Cebu Asiatown i3 in Cebu City in the central Philippines, University of the Philippines-Ayala Land TechnoHub in Quezon City, and Nuvali TechnoHub in Sta. Rosa City, outside Manila. These will bring to 12 the number of Convergys’ operational contact center facilities in the Philippines. The company now has around 16,000 employees.

The UP-Ayala Land center, the company’s seventh in Metro Manila, can hold up to 1,000 employees. Another 1,000 employees can be housed at the Convergys facility in Cebu i3, the company’s third in Cebu City. The Nuvali site is Convergys’ first in Sta. Rosa, and can hold 900 employees.

With the opening of these three centers, Convergys can fulfill almost half of its job commitments for the year. Source

Though the outsourcing business has taken a considerable dip in recent times, it seems that city professionals working in the business might have the last laugh after all. Going by the reports of abusive and unsolicited feedback from callers in the UK and the US that these professionals often face in their working life, our city boys and girls might consider themselves lucky to be in outsourcing.

“Every now and then we come across an angry American posing as a client who yells at us for ‘stealing their jobs’, slamming down the phone before we can speak back to them,” says Avinash, a banking executive dealing with US based clients at a multinational firm in the City. While the trend is markedly noted in the call centres, irate first world citizens seemingly vent their ire through email and chat as well. Says Srinivas, a strategist at a Hyderabadbased IT firm on the trend: “It’s a way of venting their frustration over the telephone line or chat window for employees in the US, who presumably have been given the pink slip.” One of the causes behind such sporadic outbursts, reasons Srinivas, “is the differing nature of the Indian psyche, vis a vis the western mind. (more…)

TeleTech, a leader in the Business Process Outsourcing industry was named BPO Company of the Year by the International ICT Awards-Philippines. TeleTech Customer Management Inc. bested five other contenders in its category to bag the plum recognition in the gala night held on March 26, at the Hotel InterContinental Manila.

Now on its third year, The International ICT Awards jointly organized by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines and the Business Process Association of the Philippines recognizes the organizations and individuals who contribute the most in putting the Philippines and Filipinos in the minds of global business leaders. During 2007, TeleTech was also named Fastest Growing BPO Co. by the award giving body. Full News

Genpact company is eyeing around 30 outsourcing deals in India across sectors like manufacturing, telecom, utilities and financial services, according to the company’s president and CEO Pramod Bhasin. The country’s largest BPO firm by sales has also zeroed in on China, Japan and West Asia as growth markets. The country’s BPO market, valued at $1.3 billion, is expected to grow by 40% in 2009. “The domestic market is very receptive towards outsourcing. Deal sizes, however, remain small, ranging between $1 million and $5 million,” Mr Bhasin said.

IT-BPO companies ignored the home turf in the past due to lower margins as there is no significant cost advantage in catering to a domestic firm. In contrast, cost differentials can go up to 50% while servicing foreign firms.

With the slowdown hitting business in developed markets, companies have now turned their attention homeward.
Mr Bhasin said margins in the domestic market are becoming comparable to those overseas. Genpact’s operating margin hovers around 17%. “We don’t have high telecom and other infrastructure costs in India and we can work out of smaller towns, thus saving further,” he said. (more…)

A 32-year-old man filed a complaint with the Suburban Commissioner SR Jangid against a company that had promised profits in BPO projects based outside India. J Seenivasan alleged that Info Ark Technologies in Nandambakkam had given out an advertisement seeking profit-sharing investments with good returns. Seenivasan and four others had met MD Ramesh and CEO Karthikeyan who advised them to invest Rs 1 lakh each and set up an office to do the project.

The five of them had taken loans and also had recruited people last August. They had bought computer systems along with an air-conditioned space. They completed the ‘project’, but they claimed that they were unaware of its location. They handed over the project details to Karthikeyan and requested for interim fee until the final payments were made.

Seenivasan and his friends were issued cheques of Rs 1 lakh each, which bounced when deposited. They became suspicious and when they went back to Ramesh’s office, it was locked. Seenivasan said that he and his friends have lost almost Rs 50 lakh in this manner and requested adequate action. Jangid has directed the case to Nandambakkam police station. Source

From an extremely fragmented industry, the domestic BPO sector, which was mainly focused on providing outbound telemarketing services, has started to provide cutting-edge outsourcing solutions.

According to Ms Gayatri Balaji, Chief Operating Officer (South India operations), Sparsh, ‘The needs of both-domestic and international markets are similar. Both look at partners who can drive process excellence and become an extension of their business processes.

The domestic BPO space is primarily voice-based and includes the back-office work. Outbound calls are made for telemarketing, follow-up of orders and sales, while inbound calls could be for customer inquiry and complaints or response calls for a particular marketing campaign. (more…)

With the increasing number of deaths in Bpo industry is it safe anymore to work in a BPO organisation ? Yet another shocking murder of a BPO employee has been reported. This incident took place near Faridabad in UP.

The body of a 28-year-old female BPO employee was discovered on Friday night… The deceased has been identified as Jigisha Ghosh, who was working as a Operations Manager in a BPO in Noida. The victim left her residence on 17th of March for a late night shift.. She never returned home after that.

A case has been registered and a postmortem will be held to ascertain the cause of death. Police are questioning relatives, friends and colleagues of the victim. Source

The BPO division of Infosys Technologies, Infosys BPO, has taken steps to reduce variable costs and accelerate staff redeployment by terminating the services of over 600 contract workers in February, according to sources close to the development. The workers, who were on multi-year contracts, included temporary workers, whose exact numbers are not clear. Simultaneously, Infosys BPO is adding another 2,000 workers by the end of March, which will raise its headcount above the 20,000 mark from around 18,000 at present.

A company spokesperson, however, maintained that employees on the direct rolls of Infosys BPO had not been laid off. “As a matter of principle, Infosys does not believe in layoffs. In fact, we are further expanding our headcount in line with growth imperatives amid the global recession,” the spokesperson said, claiming to be unaware of any BPO arm’s contractor carrying out layoffs.

HR industry sources, however, confirmed the development. Contractors catering to Infosys’ staffing needs include Adecco PeopleOne, Mafoi and TeamLease. (more…)

India’s BPO industry defended itself after a BBC sting alleged misuse of confidential credit-card information of British customers by a Delhi-based person with links to a call centre.

“We don’t stand for fraud and misuse of information,” said Raman Roy, chairman, Quattro BPO Solutions. “But it’s almost vindictive, unless all facts are in place and his identity and linkage to a call centre is established.” Roy, who earlier ran Wipro Spectramind and is a pioneer of the outsourced services industry, said India accounted for a minuscule percentage of the overall fraud amounting to $6 billion. “Linking the fraud to India is stretching it a bit too far,” he said.

Indian call-centre operations face criticism on data privacy, but its opponents say the country is also targeted by those who do not like the loss of BPO jobs in developed economies.Sachar apparently agreed to supply the undercover reporters hundreds of credit- and debit-card details each week at $10 dollars a card. “He claimed some of the numbers had been obtained from call centres handling mobile phone sales or phone bill payments,” the BBC report said. (more…)

RSA - the insurer has extended its business process outsourcing (BPO) contract with Accenture for a further two years.

RSA – formerly Royal & Sun Alliance – initially signed a contract with the consultant firm in 2003 for the provision of front-line customer service and back-office administration services across its sales, service, claims and customer accounting functions, supporting direct, affinity and broker customers. 

According to RSA, the agreement was extended due to the supplier’s experience in the insurance sector, which enabled a thorough understanding of the business.

“In addition to cost reductions, RSA is benefiting from high service levels, which are essential for customer satisfaction and our future revenue growth,” said Bill Taylor, chief operating officer of sales and service and head of BPO strategy at RSA. Source